Terri-Lynne McClintic who has already been convicted in the death of eight year old Woodstock girl Victoria Stafford, is seen in the back of a van as she leaves court in London, Ontario March 22, 2012 after testifying in the case of co-accused Michael Rafferty.

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LONDON, Ont. — The skeletal remains of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford were so badly decomposed that by the time police found them, more than three months after she went missing, it could not be determined whether there were any signs of sexual assault, an Ontario court heard Tuesday.

The small girl was wearing only a T-shirt when the body was discovered, leaving little evidence to be gleaned from her naked lower body, said Dr. Michael Pollanen, the province's chief forensic pathologist, who conducted the autopsy on July 20, 2009.

Pollanen, categorized as an expert witness, was testifying at the trial of Michael Rafferty, a man accused in the death of the Grade 3 student.

Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm in the young girl's death.

Stafford was last seen on April 8, 2009, outside her school in Woodstock, Ont., a small city 145 kilometres west of Toronto.

Her battered body was found on July 19, 2009, in two garbage bags buried underneath a rock pile in a rural clearing near Mount Forest, Ont., nearly two hours away by car.

As part of his testimony, Pollanen showed a series of disturbing photographs of the partial remains that were flashed on monitors throughout the courtroom.

"These photos, even for a pathologist, can be rather confronting," he had warned the 12-member jury.

"What I suggest you do is you have to look past the emotion and you have to let science and your own observations be your guide of what you see here."

Dressed in a purple shirt and striped purple and silver tie, the same colour the Stafford family often wears in the child's honour, Rafferty appeared unaffected by the ghastly photographs of the dismembered remains.

At times, he closed his eyes or squinted while they were displayed on a screen in front of him.

Pollanen described to the court his autopsy consisted of an external, internal, skeletal and microscopic examination.

The evidence, he said, concluded a number of things: The blond-haired girl had suffered numerous injuries before she had died; She had been struck with an object, likely a hammer, at least four times on the top of her head; Three of the blows were done with the claw-side of the tool; Stafford had multiple facial fractures that could have been caused by hammer blows, kicking or punching; Two-thirds of her ribs were fractured on both sides of her chest, which showed "extensively distributed trauma to the entire torso" and could have been caused by kicking, stomping or crushing of the child's fragile chest, testified Pollanen.

The number of rocks laid on top of the body, including one that weighed 45 kilograms found directly on top of her upper body, also could have caused some of the fractures, he said.

The autopsy also found that Stafford had a deep, five-to-six centimetre-long cut on her liver that had been suffered prior to death.

Although the official cause of death was found to be multiple blunt force trauma to the head, the girl also suffered bleeding from her head wounds, nose and mouth, traumatic brain damage and she most likely choked on her own blood, Pollanen told the court.

"Despite all of that, death will not be immediate," he testified, explaining the child stayed alive during most of these injuries.

There were a number of holes in the bag, and a small portion of her body had been exposed to the elements, animals and insects.

Due to the state of the remains, he could not determine her specific date of death.

Earlier in the day, Ontario Superior Justice Thomas Heeney warned the jury the upcoming pathology evidence will be the "worst" they will see in this trial.

"You've been warned about graphic images being shown before and they've no doubt been disturbing, but I can tell you that this will be the worst that you will see during the course of this case, so you really need to steel yourselves," he said.

"You must be cold, analytic and critical," adding that jurors must ensure they make use of common sense and reason to try this case, not emotion.

Stafford's mother, Tara McDonald, could be seen crying, while other family members consoled each other while the photographs were being shown.

The girl's father, Rodney Stafford, left the courtroom with his girlfriend during the middle of the testimony.

Neither parent returned following the lunchtime break.

Pollanen explained to jurors that the body was brown in colour due to natural decomposition and examiners could tell she had been in a fetal position when she was buried.

He said it quickly became clear the remains were those of a child.

"The teeth are not fully developed and the bones are not developing at that point," he said. "Obviously, she was quite small."

Stafford was wearing a Hannah Montana T-shirt when she was found with sparkles and crystals around the collar. At the front of the Disney shirt, was a photograph of the singer/actor with a guitar and the words "A girl can dream."

Examiners also found a pair of black earrings with three butterflies on them. One of them was still in her right ear. Two white water bottle caps and a fragment of a hair barrette also were found in the bags containing her remains.

Also on Tuesday, the owner of the property where Stafford was found testified he remembers being "surprised" to see car tracks leading up a rural laneway into his field early that spring.

Ervin Bauman, a cattle farmer, said around the time of the disappearance, his family had been celebrating his daughter's wedding.

The family usually travelled through the laneway by horse and buggy and tractors. His children also used the laneway as a shortcut in good weather when they went to school.

They did not use the laneway that winter or the early spring because the ground had been too wet, he said.

On Monday, the jury visited the secluded farmer's field to better understand the geographical evidence in the case.

Last week, Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Staff Sgt. Jim Smyth testified he found Tori's remains based on a hunch.

Rafferty's ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, had provided the police with a number of sketches of the site and went on a number of ride-alongs after she was charged in May 2009 to help the police try to locate the child's body.

In 2010, McClintic pleaded guilty in Stafford's death and is currently serving a life sentence.

Although she was able to provide many details of the site, she could not remember exactly where she alleges Rafferty repeatedly raped the little girl and she had fatally struck her multiple times with a hammer.

The couple had been high on drugs when the abduction and murder took place, McClintic said.

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